GOP Report: We Owe Our House Majority to Gerrymandering Those Fools!

ThinkProgress caught the GOP accidentally telling the truth again as they outline in a report put out by their Republican State Leadership Committee how their majority in the US House is due almost entirely to gerrymandering congressional districts and overcoming popular vote disparities in key states.

Plunderbund readers are well aware of the problem with gerrymandering in Ohio. As TP points out, the report basically admits Republicans are getting away with subverting the true will of the people of Ohio in order to hold on to power:

Ohio
Ohio once again proved to be the national bellwether, voting to reelect President Obama to a second term in the White House by almost two points. On the statewide level, Ohioans also elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate by more than five points. But the Republican firewall at the state legislative and congressional level held. In 2010, REDMAP allocated nearly $1 million to Ohio House races, resulting in a Republican take over of the House and increasing the GOP majority in the Senate. With the election of Republican John Kasich to the governor’s mansion, the GOP controlled the redrawing of 132 state legislative and 16 congressional districts. Republican redistricting resulted in a net gain for the GOP state House caucus in 2012, and allowed a 12-4 Republican majority to return to the U.S. House of Representatives – despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates.

RSLC is pretty clear in the report. They brag about their state level successes (all well and good), but in doing so they openly admit the reason it’s so important is so Republicans can control the redistricting process in order to chop up the districts in such a way that they win more seats in the US House than they really should.

They’ve rigged the game in such a way that even when they lose (less popular votes), they win! (more congressional seats).